I think there is an invisible force which is controlling events, events seen and unseen. I look for the signs in everyday life, signs with meaning.

We are hard-wired to look for meaning in random events; particularly events that conform to our beliefs. This is known as [wiki]confirmation bias[/wiki]. We look for things that appear to validate our beliefs, because we want our beliefs to be true. Other types of biases we're prone to include, but are not limited to, [wiki]experimenter's bias[/wiki], [wiki]wishful thinking[/wiki] and [wiki]selection bias[/wiki].

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My names are many, yet I am One.-Orion, son of Fire and Light, Sol Invictus.

Source? AFAIK Albert Einstein was a deist at best, agnostic atheist at worst, and he's had a lot of BS quotes attributed to him (argumentum ad verecundiam).

It is from The World As I See Italso from that book...“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.” Albert Einstein, The World as I See It

I think there is an invisible force which is controlling events, events seen and unseen. I look for the signs in everyday life, signs with meaning.

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. - Albert Einstein

Why would god want to remain anonymous? Seems like the world's religious conflicts would be resolved PDQ if a god, any god, would show up and be identified.

That is simple. If god is a hands off God, he is just watching his experiment evolve. Wars, dissease, murder, pain, suffering are all just interesting things to watch. just like a scientist watching ants go to war all the deaths are just datapoints. And as a side note the scientist being a god like creature to ants probably could care less if the ants worshiped him.

Could you imagine being so shallow as to want ants, love, approval and or worship?

Humans would be less than ants to God, being jealous, angry, happy... with regards to their actions would seem petty and silly.

That is simple. If god is a hands off God, he is just watching his experiment evolve. Wars, dissease, murder, pain, suffering are all just interesting things to watch. just like a scientist watching ants go to war all the deaths are just datapoints. And as a side note the scientist being a god like creature to ants probably could care less if the ants worshiped him.

I once speculated in a post a while back that, if you assume a deist god, the universe could well be to him/her like a sand pendulum is to a human being. And when human beings play with a sand pendulum, they certainly don't worry about whether the pendulum moving the sand around is causing any pain to the grains of sand or anything.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

That is simple. If god is a hands off God, he is just watching his experiment evolve. Wars, dissease, murder, pain, suffering are all just interesting things to watch. just like a scientist watching ants go to war all the deaths are just datapoints. And as a side note the scientist being a god like creature to ants probably could care less if the ants worshiped him.

I once speculated in a post a while back that, if you assume a deist god, the universe could well be to him/her like a sand pendulum is to a human being. And when human beings play with a sand pendulum, they certainly don't worry about whether the pendulum moving the sand around is causing any pain to the grains of sand or anything.

^^^This is pretty much the only kind that makes any sense at all to me. I allow for a deist type of God, one that is non-participatory, as a possibility. As I come to know little bits more about Buddhism, I could see me getting on board with that as a life philosophy.

The more I learn, really about almost anything at this point, the less sense I can make of an interventionist/Abrahamic version of God. It simply makes no coherent sense when we look at the world as it actually is.

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky that created the entire universe and the majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure." ~George Carlin

Some people will not truly consider God . . . until they're aware that THIS might be their last breath. Imagine being on the 100th floor of one of the Trade Towers on September 11th and realizing your flight down the stairs might not get you out safely. Or imagine a rainy night on the highway as you are driving home late one Friday and a semi tractor trailer faces you head on with no time to react. Then there's always the doctors diagnosis that "Yes, I'm sorry, it's cancer and it's beyond treatment." All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?" As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth. So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him. He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.Who knows, today COULD be your last.

First of all, we're not real big on being preached to around here. It's fine to state your opinion, but when it sounds like you're up on the pulpit, we get a little peeved.

Second, I am well aware that today could be my last day. I may or may not even finish this sentence. Someday will be, for sure, and since I'm in my 60's, that will be sooner than later. But I've had a long, long time to think about such things and I am about as sure as I can be without actually being on my last breath that I'll remain certain that there is no god up until the very end, and accept my demise as gracefully as whatever kills me will allow.

I've had the occasional close call (more the semi headed for me type than disease) and never gave god a thought even though i could have perished halfway through the process. I once thought I was having a heart attack (turned out to be severe indigestion, which I had never experienced before) and my only concern as I sat down on the wilderness trail was that my body might be found by little kids running down the trail ahead of their parents instead of an adult and I didn't want a kid to have to deal with that. I gave no thought to a god or a useless fear of death. I accepted then that I might just about be gone, and I trust when it happens again, real or not, I will react in a similar way.

That you need such stuff if your problem, not mine. That you need a god and need some sense of eternity or whatever it is that attracts you to religion is your POV, not the one we should all have. I've made it very clear that nobody says word one about any of their gods at my memorial service, and I can promise you that as I lay dying, I won't either.

Some people will not truly consider God . . . until they're aware that THIS might be their last breath.

Other people, on the other hand, will spend years truly "considering god" and come to the conclusion that, in all likelihood, there isn't one. As strange as it probably sounds to you, the fact that we're atheists doesn't mean we haven't given the matter any thought. In fact, quite the contrary, most of the regulars here are atheists because they have.

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Imagine being on the 100th floor of one of the Trade Towers on September 11th and realizing your flight down the stairs might not get you out safely. Or imagine a rainy night on the highway as you are driving home late one Friday and a semi tractor trailer faces you head on with no time to react. Then there's always the doctors diagnosis that "Yes, I'm sorry, it's cancer and it's beyond treatment."

Yes, everyone dies eventually. How is that relevant?

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All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?"

Most of the regulars here have done that. In fact, most of the regulars here were Christians, and they weren't casual about it, either. When they felt their faith starting to fade, most of them were very distraught and tried very hard to continue being believers. They prayed and prayed and prayed, imploring Yahweh to give them strength or some kind of a sign or what have you to help them continue being believers. Yahweh did not answer them. What do you think about that?

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As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth.

Most of the regulars here have done that, too. (You'll want to notice, by the way, that you're making a hell of a lot of assumptions about us, and thus far, they've all been wrong. Not just a little bit wrong, either, but VERY wrong.)

Anyway. Most of us here, including me, have read that Bronze Age Cure For Insomnia cover to cover at least once, and it did not cause believers to retain their faith or cause atheists to become believers. For my own part, in fact, I had always been rather skeptical of Christianity, and when I finally got around to reading the bible a year or two ago, I did not "magically see the light" or anything. In fact, quite the contrary, it basically cemented my rejection of the religion.

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So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him. He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.

Then why am I, for one, an atheist? If Yahweh exists and is omniscient, he knows perfectly well that if I'm wrong about him not existing, I damn well want to know about it. So why am I still not a believer?

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Who knows, today COULD be your last.

And again, even if it is -- so what?

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Some people will not truly consider God . . . until they're aware that THIS might be their last breath. Imagine being on the 100th floor of one of the Trade Towers on September 11th and realizing your flight down the stairs might not get you out safely. Or imagine a rainy night on the highway as you are driving home late one Friday and a semi tractor trailer faces you head on with no time to react. Then there's always the doctors diagnosis that "Yes, I'm sorry, it's cancer and it's beyond treatment." All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?" As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth. So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him. He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.Who knows, today COULD be your last.

Golly Colleen. You know, the guys who flew airplanes into the 100th floor of the WTC were truly considering God.

And I know nothing about YOUR god, but I suspect he is the same god of Abraham that those folks worshiped. The god who loves the smell of lambs' blood, and who ordered his faithful to sacrifice their children or slaughter their enemies. Just a few minor differences.

So maybe you want to re-think this "consider god" stuff. A lot of nasty things have been done by folks who were truly considering god. In biblical times, and today.

Pianodwarf pointed out that you made a whole lot of assumptions about us. And I agree.

But welcome to the forum. We look forward to learning more about you and your god and what makes you tick.

Most of the regulars here have done that. In fact, most of the regulars here were Christians, and they weren't casual about it, either. When they felt their faith starting to fade, most of them were very distraught and tried very hard to continue being believers. They prayed and prayed and prayed, imploring Yahweh to give them strength or some kind of a sign or what have you to help them continue being believers.

Yep.

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Yahweh did not answer them.

Nope.

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It doesn't make sense to let go of something you've had for so long. But it also doesn't make sense to hold on when there's actually nothing there.

Increasingly rare now because of advances in cancer research. Fighting back is vastly preferable to sighing, giving up and packing a suitcase for heaven.

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All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?"

All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask, "Athena, if you're real, will you please show me?"

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As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth.

Except for the parts that were plagiarized from the Enûma Eliš, Canaanite mythology, Greek mythology and Egyptian mythology, of course. (And of course the synoptic Gospels, which were plagiarized from each other.)

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So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him.

Been there, done that... 48 years ago. It didn't take seven-year-old Me very long at all to realize that the nonsense about Hell was just a convenient way for rulers to scare the people into obedience, and I've yet to get the Talking Snake™ that I asked for.

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He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.

And tortures for eternity all those who DO NOT WANT to know him. What a psychopathic drama queen.

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Who knows, today COULD be your last.

And what if it is? Here, Colleen: Some quotes from someone I admire a lot more than your god...

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Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.

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The future changes as we stand here, else we are the game pieces of the gods, not their heirs, as we have been promised.

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If we stop living because we fear death then we have already died.

And My personal favourite:

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I will do this. Nothing in my life matters except this. No moment of my life exists except this moment. I am born in this moment, and if I fail, I will die in this moment.

All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?" As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth. So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him. He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.

If it's so important to "know" god, you'd think the big guy himself could be a little more pro-active about it. Heck, he used to be pro-active about things. Talking directly to people, talking through bushes, sending his son down. Now... nothing. Sounds like the message needs to be directed at god himself to get off his lazy bum.

....which could take months or years, I guess you're going to tell me. Why IS that? I thought your god was one who really truly desired a relationship with his children? Why does he keep himself hidden for years - sometimes for a lifetime - if he wants a relationship?

All of us must face the reality now, while we still have eyes to read and time to ask "God, if you're real, will you please show me?" As we open up the only Book that we know, deep in our hearts, is like no other on earth. So, if YOU truly want to know if God is real, He has given YOU His personal challenge and invitation: Open His Book (Bible) with an honest desire to know Him as He is, start reading and don't stop until you "SEE" Him. He reserves Himself for those who WANT to know Him.

If it's so important to "know" god, you'd think the big guy himself could be a little more pro-active about it. Heck, he used to be pro-active about things. Talking directly to people, talking through bushes, sending his son down. Now... nothing. Sounds like the message needs to be directed at god himself to get off his lazy bum.

So, my dear friend, what sin comes to mind while you read? This is the wall He wants to tear down so you can see Him.